COP30: Conference Of Profiteers?

Belem, Brazil - Nov 22, 2025: The 30th meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate, Conference of the Parties (COP) wrapped up the proceedings early with a hastily written [“unedited”]  Outcomes Report : [link removed] that includes little of substance, along with tertiary mentions of protecting Indigenous Peoples. 


Clearly, the lukewarm, non-binding outcomes of this report will do nothing to address the growing frustration over the lack of progress in phasing out fossil fuels, which are driving planetary collapse and human rights violations. 


It’s not that COP30 negotiators don’t know, the system as it stands now, rewards extraction and false solutions. Yet the old systems are disguised as the path forward for a clean and renewable energy future, and clearly are business as usual, and most are anything but “clean energy advances.” 


The Tropical Forest Forever Facility : [link removed] (TFFF) will continue the failures of the UN’s decades-old REDD (Reducing ⓇⓇEmissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and REDD+, which was the expanded version that included the enhancement of forest carbon stocks, among other proposals. 


The past failures of carbon pricing and the collapse of those markets didn’t stop these from being further embedded in policy and recycled promises.  TheTFFF : [link removed] will not stop the violence and blatant violations of the lives lost and rights of Indigenous Peoples in the Global South : [link removed]. 


Despite overwhelming evidence and calls from rational human beings calling out the grift, this year’s COP seemed to include even more outlandish climate (non)solutions : [link removed]. The proponents of Geoengineering once again infiltrated and forced negotiations : [link removed] to include these game-over-for-the-planet, industry-supported proposals at this year’s COP. 


Over the last four years, approximately five thousand lobbyists representing fossil fuels : [link removed], rare earth minerals, mining industries and climate change scammers have been given access to these global climate meetings, successfully stonewalling any meaningful and actionable agreements. 


Instead, negotiations for years have taken on a “Price is RightⓇ” game-show format, with developed countries hemming and hawing over precious year-over-year increases in GDP (Gross Domestic Product), while waffling on meaningful action to rapidly reduce dependence on fossil fuels. This is all coupled with their lack of responsibility to ensure that Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) aren’t vehicles for corruption and control but are used for real solutions that lead to long-term climate adaptation in the communities that continue to face the most dire consequences of climate change. 


These lobbyists represent approximately 90 of the most powerful and profitable corporations that have exerted their influence for the last five years at COP negotiations. “These corporations, which include many of the world’s most profitable private and publicly owned oil and gas majors, accounted for the production of 33,699m barrels of oil equivalent in 2024 – enough to cover more than the entire area of Spain with a 1cm blanket of oil : [link removed].”


“A legal framework that could help accomplish that has been bubbling in the background since at least June 2024, when Latin American delegations and representatives from Indigenous groups submitted aDeclaration of the Rights of the Amazon : [link removed] to the Brazilian authorities.”


A “Just Transition Mechanism” was agreed upon by the majority - a timid move that included the rights of Indigenous Peoples and alluded to a green economy that must be fair to all peoples, but has no funding or substance beyond good intentions and little else.


“Climate mitigation can not be rooted in false solutions driven by extractive industries that continue to perpetuate the destruction of Indigenous lands and the displacement of the People who steward them. Climate solutions must be led by People who continue to live in symbiosis with our lands, water, and air. In a ceremony. In healing. We are demanding that our People be put in the forefront of an Indigenous-led Just Transition that moves away from these colonial structures to ensure a healthy Mother Earth and Father Sky for all, for the future of our children. We demand our voices be heard by the United Nations, not just with performative actions by checking off boxes, but by creating seats at the decision-making tables for our knowledge to be embraced as is.” Adrienne Aakaluk Blatchford, IEN Geoengineering Organizer


“Here in Belem, the UNFCCC continues to perpetuate colonial structures and capitalist logic through new and existing financial mechanisms, funding programs, and policies that consistently fail and threaten Indigenous Peoples." Tom BK Goldtooth, IEN Executive Director


“COP30 negotiators do not understand that climate change cannot be solved under a system that rewards extraction, has a failed mitigation plan using forests and conservation as carbon offsets and fails to fully uphold the inherent and distinct collective rights of Indigenous Peoples.” Thomas Joseph Tsewenaldin, IEN Carbon Pricing Educator


"There are powerful actors at the COP30 involved in global climate governance locking Mother Earth into a dependence on market-based schemes, techno-fixes, and financialised commodities under the illusion that profit-driven forces can solve the escalating impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, and social and environmental injustice. This is not working and will not work." Alberto Saldamando IEN Counsel, Human Rights & Climate Change


International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change:
 

Failing to include affirmative text in the operative paragraphs reduces the document to yet another tokenist failure. We call on states and the COP Presidency to:
Fully operationalize the inherent and collective rights of Indigenous Peoples, including our rights to lands, territories and resources, Self-determination, Free, Prior and Informed Consent, and full and effective participation in decision-making.Recognize our contributions and Knowledge Systems as a solution to the climate crisisEnsure protection of Indigenous Peoples’ environmental and land defenders and Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial ContactAgree on a just, equitable, and rights-based roadmap to phase out fossil fuels and a roadmap to halt and reverse deforestation, which upholds our rights to lands, territories and resources, Self-determination, and ensure protection of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact. Click to read more here : [link removed].

Click here for more COP30 insight and overviews : [link removed] of the proceedings.



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